Campaign burglary probe focuses on staffers

John Gibbins

Campaign workers for congressional candidate Carl DeMaio discovered that their office had been vandalized sometime overnight. A computer in the office of Demaio campaign spokesman Dave McCulloch was smashed.

Campaign workers for congressional candidate Carl DeMaio discovered that their office had been vandalized sometime overnight. A computer in the office of Demaio campaign spokesman Dave McCulloch was smashed. (John Gibbins)

Two former staffers may be the ones responsible for a burglary at GOP congressional candidate Carl DeMaio’s Mira Mesa campaign headquarters on the eve of the June 3 primary election, a San Diego Police Department spokesman said Friday.

Lt. Kevin Mayer said police have concluded that a burglary did occur at the office late in the evening of May 27 or in the early morning hours of May 28. Several thousand dollars of hardware was damaged or destroyed, including computers, telephones, a copy machine and an Internet router and cable modem.

Mayer said the DeMaio campaign identified two former staff members as potential suspects early on in the investigation.

“Both staff members are cooperating with our investigation,” Mayer said. “We anticipate the our investigation will be turned over to the District Attorney’s Office in the next couple of weeks.”

He was unable to say if the two were staffers at the time of the burglary or left the campaign subsequent to the incident.

When the damage was first discovered, DeMaio campaign spokesman Dave McCulloch called it a deliberate attempt to shut down communications shortly before the primary.

“It is clear this is not a random act of violence,” McCulloch said at the time. “It’s an attempt to silence Carl.”